


Birthdays are for Secret Agents

by petpluto



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fun, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petpluto/pseuds/petpluto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For his birthday, Bryce gives Chuck an e-mail full of pictures after not talking to him for five years after getting him kicked out of Stanford.</p>
<p>On the whole, Chuck wishes Bryce had just ignored his birthday like he had those other years, especially when the attractive blonde who asked him to fix her phone and then gave him her number proceeds to hold him at gun point on some random roof she’s dragged him to after he’s turned her down, twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthdays are for Secret Agents

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine.

For his birthday, Bryce gives Chuck an e-mail full of pictures after not talking to him for five years after getting him kicked out of Stanford.

On the whole, Chuck wishes Bryce had just ignored his birthday like he had those other years, especially when the attractive blonde who asked him to fix her phone and then gave him her number proceeds to hold him at gun point on some random roof she’s dragged him to after he’s turned her down, twice.

“Come on, Chuck,” Blonde With The Gun bites out, “Tell me about Bryce Larkin.”

“Bryce Larkin? Bryce Larkin from Connecticut? That’s what this is about? I haven’t seen Bryce in – years.” Chuck is starting to hyperventilate, starting to really begin to freak out, when a familiar voice breaks through.

“Bryce Larkin graduated Summa Cum Laude from Stanford University. His favorite color is blue. He was on the gymnastics team, likes Thai food, and never told his college crush how he felt. Hi, Chuck.” And just like that, Bryce Larkin, from Connecticut, is walking toward them, a gun aimed at Blonde Phone Woman. “Why don’t you put the gun down, Sarah? Or maybe point it at someone other than the nerd?”

Chuck feels mildly affronted, but Sarah swings her gun around to Bryce and Bryce begins circling until Chuck is squarely behind him. “What are you doing here, Bryce?”

Chuck can only see the back of Bryce, but it seems obvious that he means business. “Just here to pick up a few items. I have a couple of boxes in storage from my Stanford days, you know. Also, I’m interested in getting a new computer.”

Now Sarah’s the one who looks affronted, but more than mildly. “Why did you do it, Bryce? Did you think we weren’t going to figure it out?”

Bryce is backing up until he’s almost pressed against Chuck, and then backs up so his body is flush with Chuck’s. “I was thinking you wouldn’t figure it out quite this quickly. Not that you’re not intelligent, Sarah. You are. But tracking down an old college roommate of mine for answers? Who, by the way, has none? That seemed like a long shot.” He pauses, and then continues with a “Sorry, Chuck.”

Chuck’s hyperventilating has led to a feeling of euphoria, and he giddily says, “No problem. Just next year, a Hallmark card will do.”

His protector chuckles. “Not that it hasn’t been fun, Agent Walker, but Chuck and I’ve really got to go.” 

Blonde Phone Woman – Sarah – Agent Walker practically glitters a smile at them. “Where are you off to, Bryce? Because I don’t plan on letting you go.”  
“I’m sure you don’t.” He can’t see Bryce’s face, but Chuck’s pretty sure he’s smiling that pretty boy smile of his. And seconds later, he’s falling down what would be a very long way if Bryce hadn’t somehow gotten a hold of him and then swung them through a glass window. Which is something just like Bryce to do, something amazing and arrogant and impossible, all the while looking cool and sexy. Chuck? Well, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t look cool or sexy. That’s something he should probably work on if Bryce is going to be back in his life, because he wasn’t actually doing too well on the ‘girl’ front without a best friend who looks like a model. 

As Bryce brushes glass shards off of him, Chuck vaguely wonders if being best friends with Bryce makes him look better or worse in comparison, if simply being friends with Bryce raises the bar. He’s pretty sure if that’s how it works, being friends with Morgan may have lowered that same bar. If he’s friends with both, though, he maybe evens out to a normal Chuck-level –

“Chuck.” Bryce interrupts Chuck’s internal monologue with, “I think you’re going into shock.”

“Nope. Buddy, I’m not. I’m just freaking out.”

Bryce smiles that beautiful smile, and begins pulling him toward a door. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Chuck means to only nod and look back, but in looking back he catches a glimpse of the building directly behind the one he was recently on top of, and now inside. And pictures and images flood his brain, along with a lot of information he’s pretty sure he never knew. For a second, he’s frozen.

Bryce isn’t smiling his smile anymore. “Chuck?”

“They’re going to kill him.” He’s more sure of that than he has ever been of anything else in his life. Chuck turns to Bryce. “What did you send me?”

Bryce doesn’t answer. “Who are they going to kill?”

“The general. They’re going to kill a general. Bryce, what’s happening?”

Bryce looks oddly both triumphant and grim. “You saw all the images.”

“Yeah! And now I know stuff I shouldn’t. Stuff I can’t possibly know!”

Bryce is standing remarkably still. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know! Like, traffic patterns. Like police deployment. Like the fact that the general dude arrived yesterday when the news said today. Like the fact a Serbian terrorist was in the LargeMart today.”

Bryce nods once. “Okay, Chuck, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to destroy your computer - ”

Chuck interrupts with a hysterical laugh. “Already done by a crazy ninja.”

Bryce ignores the interruption and grabs Chuck’s wrist, pulling him toward the door. “But first we’re going to go in there and save the general. And by ‘we’, I really mean ‘me’.”

Chuck nods, and then lets out a squeal when they meet up with Blonde Phone Woman with Gun as they walk out the door.

She does not look too happy. “Stop, or I shoot.”

Bryce stops. “Shoot, and the building across the street gets blown to high heaven.”

BPW’s (as Chuck has decided to call her) eyes narrow. “Is that a threat?”

Bryce stands up to his full, slightly less tall than Chuck, height. Chuck scrunches down a bit in an effort not to be noticed. “No. It’s a fact. Intel.”

BPW looks over Bryce’s shoulder. Chuck cowers some more. “Bryce, what did you do?”

“What I had to do.”

BPW’s next question is directed to Chuck. “What did he do?”

“He – he sent me an e-mail. With pictures. A lot of pictures.” Chuck’s starting to feel faint.

“Did you back it up? Do you have an external drive?”

Chuck’s voice is starting to match how his head feels. “No.”

“You sent him the Intersect.” It isn’t a question, but a statement.

Bryce answers evenly. “And you destroyed the only remaining copy not in his head. We remain ever the team. Are you going to help us, or what?”

BPW decides to help them. 

Along the way, they pick up a guy who looks like he’s been chiseled out of stone, and who looks ready to shoot first and ask any number of questions later. 

And somehow, it’s Chuck who manages to defuse a bomb with a porno virus. 

And when BPW (Sarah) and Chiseled from Marble Guy (Casey) argue over what to do with both him and Bryce, Chuck tells them both that he and Bryce are going home. Nobody argues. It’s a fitting end to a really crazy birthday week.

Ellie runs to him, yelling at him for going out all night and not telling her, and for leaving Morgan there. He hadn’t, actually, left Morgan anywhere. But that’s a small quibble after a night like he’s had. So he just grabs them both and holds on tight. Awesome’s walking out and talking about his day, but he too takes a moment to join in the group hug.

Awesome goes to let go, and Chuck figures that it’s better now than later. “Hey, Bryce, come in here.”

Just like that, the group hug is over and Bryce Larkin is standing in his living room. And through the cacophony that erupts, through the recriminations and damnations everyone is throwing at him, Awesome’s voice stands out with, “Dude, what you did was not awesome.”

For a perverse couple of moments before he threw Bryce to the lions that are his family, he contemplated just wandering out of there and leaving his ex and possibly current best friend to it, to slip off and go to bed while Bryce got hammered for things he did five years prior. But Bryce is looking worn out and tired, and Chuck’s really done with today; so he reaches in, grabs Bryce’s wrist, and pulls him to safety.

“We’re going to bed.” All parties move to say something, and Chuck makes what Bryce used to call his Negative Noise. “We’re going to bed. We talked, we’re cool, Morgan, don’t try to kill him in his sleep.”

Bryce looks startled at that possibility, and Morgan looks a bit put out, and that’s all Chuck can handle after saving a hotel by defusing a bomb. He ambles down the hallway, tugging Bryce along.

Chuck flops decisively onto his bed, and when he doesn’t feel an accompanying plop from Bryce, he wills himself to roll over and look up.

Bryce is standing there, looking as unsure of himself as Bryce Larkin can, which, apparently, is a lot. Chuck would have never suspected that. Bryce had always been calm and cool in every situation, had always had a line. Had always just seemed so untouchable. So Chuck is left asking, “What are you doing?”

“You live here, with your sister?” Bryce sounds both put out and a bit confused.

“Yeah, I live with Ellie and Awesome.”

Bryce fidgets some more. “What happened to you, Chuck?”

“You got me kicked out of Stamford, Bryce. What did you think was going to happen?” 

Bryce looks down. Chuck sighs. “Look, I don’t want to get into the details right now, okay? It’s been a long, strange night. And today and tomorrow aren’t shaping up to be much better. So just get in and sleep.”

Bryce nods once and slides between the covers with all of the finesse Chuck doesn’t possess. Chuck’s not ashamed to admit he’s a little jealous on that end. He scrambles underneath the covers himself and pushes down that feeling of inadequacy that has always been right under the surface for the last five years. He closes his eyes.

“Chuck?” Bryce’s voice shatters the silence in the only semi-dark room.

Chuck has never been able to deny Bryce anything, and so answers, semi-unwillingly, with, “Yeah?”

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

Chuck snuggles down deeper under the covers and lets that statement wash over him as he falls asleep, trying to ignore the pulsing ‘But you already did’ thoughts that have been haunting him for far too long.


End file.
